The Principle of Charity: The principle
of charity is a presumption often made in philosophy whereby
preconceptions about an argument, a topic, or a belief are set
aside in the attempt to gain new understanding.

Philosophy. A survey of
the branches of philosophy, the history of philosophy, and main philosophical
issues with references, readings, and links to other sites from the
Wikipedia.

“Contrary to any other academic discipline, which deals with questions
within a specific area, philosophy has no subject matter specific to
it. Rather, philosophers ask fundamental questions that range over
all human knowledge. Therefore, unlike other academic subjects,
which have foundational principles needing to be understood and
even memorized by students, philosophy has no established principles
or even basic conceptual structures common to all philosophy.
Instead, its nature is an intellectual journey of pursuing
truth or wisdom based on rational scrutiny. Furthermore,
although no definition of philosophy has been accepted by
all philosophers, we may take the following definition as
our starting-point: philosophy is rational enquiry into
fundamental questions or issues about the world and human
beings so that our beliefs of them can rest upon a firm
foundation by clearing away errors about the true, the good,
and the beautiful in the world.” Xuetai Qi, “Introducting
Chinese Students to Western Philosophy,” APA Newsletter,
(Fall 2008) Vol. 8 No. 1.